This is a sad day for human rights and especially for female children.
Today Boko Haram gleefully announced that the 200 schoolgirls they kidnapped months ago have been "converted" to Islam and "married off." One should read this as it is truly meant... they have been tortured and raped... their freedom and youth gone... their hopes for a better future and a life of peace trashed. Why? Because they were Christian, and in the world that Boko Haram's testosterone-driven men envision, girls and women are chattel property and Christian girls/women are even lower... they have no rights... they are "kefir."
For months, the world has stood by and done little or nothing to save these girls. Meanwhile, we have gone to "war" against ISIS because they beheaded 2 journalists in a public show of force. Clearly I do not condone the murder of the journalists and I do not wish for more war even to free these girls. On the other hand, where was all the "intelligence" gathering that could so easily identify where ISIS command and control was and could not even find a trace of the girls? Where was the UN all this time? Where was NATO all this time? Where was the worldwide Christian community all this time?
My personal take on this is as it always is: children are expendable. Adults are not. I'll bet you never even heard about their raid on a boy's school where they killed 29 young boys in the classrooms. Why? They were just children.
Boko Haram appears to mean, "Education is sinful." It is a sin to these people because it is a threat to their twisted mindset and a threat to their testosterone-driven, male domination mindset.
I wonder what would happen to Boko Haram if they were to behead a couple of journalists in front of the world audience? I think we all know the answer.
Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, "What lies before us and what lies behind us are small matters compared to what lies within us."
Do we have within us the courage to protect children, especially young girls in places like Africa? Do we have within us the commitment to commit resources in equal portion to bringing to justice those who murder journalists and those who murder children? Do we have within us the same rage over the destruction of Christian children by Boko Haram that we had when Muslim children died in the recent Hamas/Israel conflict?
I doubt it, and that is why it is a sad day for the rights of children.